Hold Congress Accountable

Knowledge is power. It makes sure people understand what is happening to their country, and how they can make a difference. FreedomWorks University will give you the tools to understand economics, the workings of government, the history of the American legal system, and the most important debates facing our nation today. Enroll in FreedomWorks University today!

Search FreedomWorks

Resources

Blog

Earth Hour and the Anti-science Left

Saturday night, millions of people around the globe will turn off their lights from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. to honor Earth Hour. Since 2007, environmental activists have promoted this Gaia-appeasing sacrifice to conserve energy and raise awareness about apocalyptic climate change.

But like many gimmicks, Earth Hour is designed to make people feel like they’re accomplishing something instead of actually accomplishing something.

The whole “awareness-raising” trend is annoying on general principle. Why raise awareness about fatal diseases when you can work to cure them? But what is hazy messaging for a public health campaign is decidedly counterproductive for the professed goals of this envirostunt. Earth Hour actually increases CO2 emissions.

Consider the activists' recommendation of replacing electric lights with candles for an hour. Candles are made from paraffin, i.e., refined crude oil, and are far less efficient than electric bulbs — even those dastardly incandescent light bulbs our government is so helpfully seizing from us. You would need about 40 candles to match the light produced by a 40-watt bulb, but just one candle cancels out any theoretical CO2 reduction.

Then there’s the effect of a mass off-switch/on-switch across an electrical grid. Power companies still pump the same amount of energy despite a brief dip in consumption. But when a large number of people simultaneously increase consumption at the end of Earth Hour, a surge often requires engineers to fire up additional coal- or oil-fueled resources.

And liberals claim that conservatives are anti-science.

What really chafes is the flamboyant hypocrisy of Earth Hour advocates. “Let’s turn off our lights, then upload millions of tweets, photos and videos using our smartphones and computers!” Because where’s the fun in saving the planet if you can't use electricity to brag about it every three minutes?

The facts show that Earth Hour is just another exercise in progressive posturing and self-congratulation. If conspicuous non-consumption saved the planet, we’d be able to run our cars on self-righteousness and moral preening.

Earth Hour is Puritanism for a post-Christian world.

Environmentalists have spent decades trying to turn electricity into a boogeyman. In doing so, they ignore science and threaten the health and safety of about half the world’s population. Environmental economist Bjørn Lomborg detailed the overwhelmingly positive impact of electricity on the world’s most vulnerable:

Electricity has given humanity huge benefits. Almost 3 billion people still burn dung, twigs, and other traditional fuels indoors to cook and keep warm, generating noxious fumes that kill an estimated 2 million people each year, mostly women and children. Likewise, just 100 years ago, the average American family spent six hours each week during cold months shoveling six tons of coal into the furnace (not to mention cleaning the coal dust from carpets, furniture, curtains, and bedclothes). In the developed world today, electric stoves and heaters have banished indoor air pollution.

Similarly, electricity has allowed us to mechanize much of our world, ending most backbreaking work. The washing machine liberated women from spending endless hours carrying water and beating clothing on scrub boards. The refrigerator made it possible for almost everyone to eat more fruits and vegetables, and to stop eating rotten food, which is the main reason why the most prevalent cancer for men in the United States in 1930, stomach cancer, is the least prevalent now.

The counterproductive stunt of Earth Hour might make the anti-science Left feel better about themselves, but it only harms the planet and humanity at large. If activists want to improve the lives of the downtrodden, perhaps they can support the fracking boom that delivers clean, inexpensive natural gas to an energy-starved world.

I agree mostly. However, should we not be looking at ways to make fracking more environmentally friendly? What about the huge amounts of scarce water being used and then disposed of? Could any of this be re-used after some purifying? Are we holding the producers to account regarding pollution they are creating?

This year’s Banned Books List included a few surprises.The American Library Association's annual report highlights those books saddled with censorious complaints from parents, educators and assorted bureaucrats. Mom and Dad understandably would be horrified to find Fifty Shades of Grey in the elementary school stacks, but some administrators objected to Dav Pilkey's popular Captain Underpants kid-lit series.

The 1970s were a lousy decade. Embarrassing movies, dreadful music and downright terrifying clothes reflected the national mood following an unpopular war, endless political scandals and a faltering economy.

I’m an avowed skeptic on anthropogenic climate change. Sure, humans might be responsible for some negligible shift in global temperatures. But these feeble contributions pale in comparison to those caused by the sun (e.g., changes in solar radiation) and earth (e.g., volcanic activity, weather patterns). I also believe that the climate is supposed to vary over time; this is to be expected, not feared.

We’ve been here before. A storm bears down on the media centers of the east coast. Reporters don silly parkas, galosh into the tempest and offer apocalyptic sermons about climate change. “Repent! The End is Nigh!”Because who would expect the northeast to get snow in February — it’s unheard of!When I mock this predictable alarmism, Twitter lefties are quick to attack my blasphemy. “Y u hate sceince?! stoopid rethuglican!!1!” says an engaging fellow with an egg avatar and no followers. Yes, your piercing logic has swayed my scientific understanding, @m1tts4tard.

Here in Portland, Oregon, we've been something of a test lab for mass transit. Our city council, long ago (starting under then Mayor Neil Goldschmidt), threw itself wide open to federal planning experts who wished to use Portland as the template for solutions to the energy crisis of the 70s. That crisis, of course, morphed into the global warming crisis, but the goals were the same - to convince ordinary Americans that their future, and the future of all mankind, came via a trip by bus or train, not in their own car.

A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning. ~ Benjamin Disraeli A disturbing trend is developing in our institutions of higher learning - a trend that evokes visions of George Orwell or the Soviet Politburo. There have been an alarming number of unexplained terminations of professors who have dared to challenge the orthodoxy of the left. The most recent examples occured at Oregon State University and UCLA within the past few weeks.

"THE GREATEST HOAX" HOW THE GLOBAL WARMING CONSPIRACY THREATENS YOUR FUTUREby U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe Senator Jim Inhofe has been a leading voice in the United States Senate since 1994, fighting for limited government and fiscal responsibility. Senator Inhofe has brought his efforts right to the doorsteps of the EPA and their hoax; the Global Warming conspiracy. In his book, Senator Inhofe reveals the reason behind those perpetuating the hoax of Global Warming, who is benefitting from these lies and the cost of the regulations on the American tax payer.

Recently, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has come under fire for using some incendiary language to describe a 30-year old female student at Georgetown law school. While Limbaugh has faced rebuke from almost every major personality in the United States, the comments made by syndicated talk show host Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have gone relatively unnoticed.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s backdoor regulatory fiat over our economy was unable to be thwarted in the Senate on Wednesday, but there were some optimistic signs located within both the Senate and House votes.